The cancer that is corruption

In the past few years, a handful of Saudi journalists had been incessantly pounding their keyboards warning of the spread of corruption in the public sector. But for all their efforts, their calls went unheeded. Meanwhile, most of their peers in the business failed to recognise this illness and chose to ignore such messages, focusing instead on issues such as football events, the price of grains or the whereabouts of local personalities.

But following a successive series of tragedies over two years where an estimated 150 people in Jeddah lost their lives and thousands more were left homeless and devastated after brief rainfall, the print media today is brimming with indignation over the causes that led to these avoidable calamities and corruption has finally become the buzzword.

Hardly any public sector has been spared from this surge of indignation from the media. From our municipalities, to the national airline, to the courts and the justice system, to the Civil Defence and many others, all are under fire for coming up short in their activities, and failing the public. Money had not been put to good use. Notwithstanding the fact that with a bit of research one could add up billions of riyals allocated to serve the public in various projects in the past three decades, but which have failed to reach their goals, the media today is vociferous in its calls for action against those officials past and present proven to be guilty of negligence or lining their deep and never-ending pockets with funds meant to serve the public.

And while city officials have been actively attributing the cause of the rainfall tragedy to nature, or blaming the public or past administrations, the people are having none of that. Although just about everyone welcomed King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz's immediate response then to provide relief and compensation to the surviving victims, and his call for an immediate investigation, the eventual disposition on the inquiry has not been transparent, and the fate of those corrupt officials unclear.

Even projects recently completed have had their faults exposed within minutes of the brief rainfall. The images of the underpass built less than two years ago on one of Jeddah's main arteries but which flooded so swiftly have strengthened the resolve of the public that action must be taken against those corrupt officials who have been padding their bank accounts at the public's expense.

Just this month, six employees at the Jeddah municipality were charged with corruption and embezzling money from a programme to combat dengue fever. A reported 100 million Saudi riyals (Dh97.9 million) is unaccounted for, which leads to the question as to how and why was this allowed to happen? Where were the gridlocks of checks and balances with such large sums involved?

In its most recent bi-annual report, the once dormant Control and Investigation Board (CIB) reported a total of 1,259 crimes committed in various government departments, including 794 cases of bribery happily accepted by public officials. I wonder what the outcome of such a report would be?

Right to know

Many call for investigations of those accused of embezzling public funds to be open, free to the media and the public. The right to know has finally emerged from a previously dormant populace. Many expect that those found to be negligent or corrupt would be publicly prosecuted in the hope that such actions would deter would-be hopefuls trying to become rich while on the job, and treating funds allocated to the improvement of services to the public as a cash cow. Others reminded of a recent incident where the bank account of a lowly notary public servant was found to exceed 42 million riyals from questionable sources. There are calls for a declaration of personal assets by anyone inducted into the public sector. Such a declaration should also encompass his entire family's assets to prevent any embezzlement and laundering of ill-gotten wealth. Private contractors with strong links to our municipalities, and who have fallen short of expectations, must also come under scrutiny and be investigated. Nepotism must be immediately addressed and those on the payroll purely for the purpose of collecting a monthly salary while engaged in other activities must be booted out.

Some have even suggested the hiring of foreign expertise to deal with our never-ending municipal issues with water supply and sewage disposal, and our road networks, bearing in mind the hollow promises from city officials over the past three decades. Today, corruption figures prominently within our bureaucracy and many are buoyed by the recent decision of King Abdullah to set up a permanent body to investigate corruption in government bodies, and report anomalies directly to him.

Corruption flourishes when there is no accountability. And it flourishes even more when the public docilely accepts it as a way of life. But all is not obviously well, contrary to what we had been hearing from our public officials. Over 150 victims would attest to that. Good citizenship calls for all of us, to expose such offenders immediately.

Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.